With an understanding of the fundamentals in this book, and the ability to apply them (developed over time through consistent practice), you should be able to draw anything. However, just because you can draw anything doesn’t mean you would
want to draw anything. Some things in the world don’t lend themselves to very good
drawings. A wall of trees. An overcast sky. A polar bear in a snowstorm. You’re welcome to try to draw these, or any other thing imaginable, but don’t put the pressure on yourself to have to draw everything. I remember when I first started I would struggle to draw particular things which I would never bother to attempt now, just because they aren’t very suitable to be drawn. In order for something to be suitable to be drawn, it has to have some sort of variance in the lighting (usually some simple light source with a decent contrast works best), and some discernable shapes. Be bold in attempting anything that suits your fancy but be aware that not everything in the world is going to make a great drawing. Choosing a powerful subject will go a long way toward making a powerful drawing.
I was asked in one of my recent classes if I ever get a student with “real potential”. It’s a reasonable enough question, by conventional ways of thinking, but I think we have yet to really understand potential. Potential is only a hint, or trace, of a future reward to be reaped. In the class, I have students who are in their 50’s, and one girl who is 13. Who has the greatest potential? Conventional wisdom would have us believe that young people have all the potential in the world. Older people may as well sit down where they are at and wait to expire. Theoretically, I suppose the young girl has the most potential because she has the most years of her life left to put the most effort into the things she desires but the real answer to the question is that it is impossible for me to tell who has the most potential. For all I know, she could finish my class and never draw again. An older student could still have 20, 30 years of their life left to pursue the thing they love and actually do it. In order for potential to have any meaning, it has to be realized. In order to realize potential, we have to continue to work at the thing. The only important qualities, when considering potential, are not the age, or current skill of the artist, but the attitude, temperament, humility, work ethic, and desire of the artist. The one who is most willing to see the task to the end is the one most likely to complete the task. We might think there are countless factors in society standing in the way of us (and not others) and our goals. We are probably wrong. Anything worthwhile is difficult to achieve for anyone, it’s only a difference of degree. I find that most people often stop themselves before they ever even get a chance to find out of they are capable of accomplishing the thing or not. As soon as you tell yourself you cannot do it, you are finished.
I tell people at every one of my workshops and classes that there are two ways to get better at drawing. One, which you are doing now, is learning about the technical ways in which you can get better at drawing. Improving your technical skills and abilities will give you all kinds of flexibility in any future expression, just as an increase in the command of your language gives you all kinds of options for better articulation. But there is another way to get better at drawing, or better at anything, which we do not often think about. You can get better at drawing by improving your life, or improving the way in which you live. We all have three aspects to our being that we use in everything; our mind, body, and spirit. Even a strict physical
improvement, a getting-into-shape, will allow you to be more attentive, capable, and able to put more force into the work. Imagine the improvements that your mind and spirit can have? If you want to say something with your drawing, it’s not enough to just learn how to draw, you’ve got to have something to say.
This boils down to the crux of art. All good art is some sort of storytelling, some sort of communication about the human experience. Art isn’t about abstract
concepts. Art isn’t about “exploring spatial relationships”. Art is about being human. This exposes the ultimate fallacy of modern art, with it’s lengthy explanations next to the work, critics, and documentaries to translate the meaning to the viewer. Real art needs no explanation. It is a powerful communication from the piece to the viewer. If you cannot understand the meaning of a visual work by looking at it, or if the
meaning appears so broad as to be everything (and thereby, nothing), then the meaning is that the story sucks. It means that the artist is a terrible storyteller. Poor communication cannot be good art (if it can be art at all).
A straight way to have powerful art is to have a powerful life. If you want to say something about life, you have to have something to say to begin with. You need to have passions, you need to have emotions, you need to have thoughts, ideas, and opinions. Nobody can give this to you, you have to set out and find it yourself. You have to get smart and passionate. You have to develop your spirit and your body. You have to get out and live. Take a risk. Do something different. Try a new experience. Meet some new people. Attempt a new adventure. Live. Then pick up the pencil or brush and tell us about it.
Once you get yourself going, then you can lead by example. Artists are
individuals. Hopefully through our work, we can show people the way, show them that it is possible to think for oneself, show them that it is possible to be unique, inspire them to dare, and try, and experience life! I am always disappointed when an artist (or any person with a brain) endorses a political party. Especially in their current form, political parties are not about ideals, principles, freedom, or
individuality. They’re about constraint, control, and compliance; the exact opposite of art. As an artist (or a person with a brain) you can do better. Political parties need artists, not the other way around. As artists, we should be inspiring people to
experience and understand life for themselves, not to conform.